There was however one room in this house which would have given its late owner many shudders to enter. This was the little mother's own particular room, the windows of which looked out upon that row of small, red, bandbox-like houses opposite which had managed to remain standing in spite of the rapacious hands of reconstruction companies which are never so happy as when destroying old landmarks and tearing down old buildings. Into this room Mrs. Guthrie had placed all the furniture of her first sitting-room,--cheap, late Victorian stuff of which she had been so inordinately and properly proud when she started housekeeping with the young doctor. From these things Mrs. Guthrie could not be parted. They were all redolent with good and tender memories and were to her mind far more valuable and more beautiful than all the priceless old oak pieces put together. Curiously enough--or perhaps not curiously at all--this was Peter's favorite room, too, and he never entered it without renewing his vows to climb to the top of his own tree, as his father had done. Belle, Graham and Ethel all laughed at the little mother for clinging to this "rubbish," as they called it, which was so out of keeping with the rest of the house. But Peter sympathized with her and never failed while sitting there in the evening, in close and intimate conversation with the dear little woman who meant so much to him, to get from it a new desire to emulate his father and make his own way in the same brave spirit. When Belle and Betty arrived at East Fifty-second Street--a little tired after their walk--they found Graham in the hall. "Oh, hello!" said he. "Been shopping?" "No," answered Belle, "nothing tempted us. We've walked all the way home from Gramercy Park,--some walk! Everything I've got on is sticking to me. Aren't you home early, Graham?" Graham nodded. "Nothing doing," he said. "Besides, I'm dining early." He turned to Belle with a rather curious smile. "I thought you were to be with the Delanos last night." Belle tilted her chin. "I was. I dined there, went to the Winter Garden and then danced at Bustanoby's." "I caught sight of you in Spearman's car somewhere about one o'clock in the morning. Did he drive you home?" "I guess he did, dear boy," said Belle, blandly, "and by the way, we saw you, going in to supper somewhere with a girl with a Vogue face and an open-air back!" Graham laughed. "That's different," he said. "Spearman isn't the sort of man I care to see my sister going about with alone. I advise you to be a little more fastidious." "Thank you, Graham darling," said Belle, quite un-moved, "but I'm old enough to choose my own friends without your butting in. Just for fun, would you tell me what _you_ know about the word fastidious?" "That's different," said Graham again. And he went up-stairs to his own room with rather heavy feet.